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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wants to see Java on a lot more devices, particularly mobile phones and Netbooks. Whether or not the combined Oracle/Sun builds such devices, Ellison expects to pour more money and research into Java's development.

The tech community has been wondering what will happen to Java now that its new parent will be Oracle, courtesy of the database giant's impending $7.4 billion buyout of Sun Microsystems, which is expected to close this summer.

Larry Ellison and Scott McNealy at JavaOne

(Credit: JavaOne)

At Tuesday's JavaOne conference in San Francisco, Ellison made a surprise appearance on stage, where he spoke with Sun Chairman Scott McNealy about Java's future.

"I think you'll see us get very aggressive in developing Java apps for things like telephones and Netbooks," said Ellison. He added that he's been reading a lot about mobile devices, including those running Google's Android operating system, that make use of Java. He's looking for greater development of mobile applications using Sun's JavaFX Mobile platform, which is optimized to run on cell phones and Netbooks.

Ellison highlighted Java-based cell phones and netbooks running Android as key areas to target and hinted that Oracle/Sun may want to enter that arena directly. "I can see lots and lots of Java devices, some coming from our friends at Google," said Ellison. "But I don't see why some of those devices shouldn't come from Sun/Oracle."

Hardware makers that have already unveiled or announced phones and Netbooks based on Android include Acer, HTC, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.

Ellison threw his full support behind Java, reminding the crowd at JavaOne that Oracle's middleware makes good use of Java. He called it an "attractive platform" because of its openness and the ability to extend it. "Everything that sits on top of our database--all our products--are Java-based," he said. He added that Oracle's whole next generation of business applications is built entirely on Java.

When asked by McNealy about the future of Java in general, Ellison said, "Sun has done a fantastic job inventing Java, expanding Java, opening up Java, giving Java to the world, and we're going to do more of the same." He noted that Oracle has invested heavily in Java in the past and believes that investment will continue and even accelerate. "We see increased investment in Java coming from the Sun/Oracle combination," he said.

The full exchange between Ellison and McNealy is available below.

Yahoo's Java app plan.

(Credit: Yahoo Inc.)

Things were looking promising for Yahoo's mobile repositioning. By April 1, Yahoo had a redesigned mobile Web site, a richer but similarly-featured iPhone app, and plans for a Java phone edition, of which we got to take a sneak peek. However, that final Java app is no longer going to materialize, at least not in its originally planned form. Yahoo recently released a message to beta testers explaining that the company "has decided to cease development of the Yahoo Mobile smartphone app effective Wednesday, May 20th. So you will not be provided access to the beta program for this product."

At the time of writing, Yahoo's mobile Web site still advertised the smartphone app. Now, Yahoo wants beta testers of the native would-be Java app to use the revamped mobile site.

Yahoo cites streamlined services as the impetus for discontinuing development on the mobile app, but what does that really mean? Crushing business pressures that have slashed Yahoo's budget for mobile application development? An investment in developing for Palm's new Web OS instead? Or perhaps the realization that the planned Yahoo Mobile Java app needed a more compelling design than the widget dashboard motif under production? It could be all of the above.

Yahoo Mobile on the Web and iPhone groups Yahoo's search, RSS, and social-networking products together in a unified app, after each had been released as a separate element months before. It's a successful design, where the features are organized by screens in the iPhone app and by subsections on the scrolling Web app.

In contrast, the Java setup imagined the application as a gathering place for widgets: weather, e-mail, social networks, news feeds, and a browser shortcut. Were Yahoo to concentrate instead on recreating its iPhone offering for BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Nokia, and Web OS, the application would likely stick its cleats in deeper, and inspire greater applause than had Yahoo kept to its Java widget plan.

It is a loss for those in the beta testing community who had been looking forward to the Java app release, and it's not the first time that Yahoo has yanked a consumer product well after courting the press. (The visually engaging Yahoo Messenger for Vista is just one example, and one we'd like to see resurrected for the Windows 7 platform.) As Yahoo assures us its mobile team will continue developing for multiple mobile platforms, it's likely this won't be the last we hear of a native Yahoo Mobile application for a platform other than the iPhone--especially with platform-specific app stores on the rise.

[Via TechCrunch]

Careful, Yahoo Mobile for Web can grow longer than your arm.

(Credit: Yahoo)

Yahoo let loose at CTIA 2009 with a redesigned Yahoo Mobile experience for the Web and iPhone--available beginning Wednesday--and a sneak peek at a version for Java smartphones.

Yahoo has combined all the organizational elements it has been working on separately during the past year and a half or so to bring OneSearch, OnePlace, and OneConnect together in a single application. It's a throwback to Yahoo's beginnings as an Internet portal, but with a twist--and it works, though not without drawbacks.

Most intriguing is Yahoo's completely divergent similar experiences for the Web and iPhone versus the build for Java smartphones. The former invoke a classic Yahoo design, and the latter splinters off into widget land with a brand-new dashboard. Read below for the full details, or check out photos in our gallery: Yahoo Mobile steps into the light.

Yahoo Mobile's Web makeover
Yahoo's completely redesigned mobile hub on the Web is a tall, scrollable mashup of search, news, e-mail, social networking, finance, weather, sports scores, and any other RSS feed you'd want to add. At the very top is Yahoo OneSearch, which keys in your location using GPS or cell tower triangulation to make your text searches start faster. Below the search bar is a condensed feature section (Today on Yahoo) that emphasizes images.

Below that is an option to expand all Yahoo services, which gives you a portal-style list of everything from the Yahoo calendar to Flickr to movie showtimes. Back in the main screen, Yahoo OneConnect lets you add Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, and AOL e-mail in-boxes, Facebook and Twitter feeds, instant-messaging applications, and Yahoo's calendar and address book.

Further south, the area for Yahoo OnePlace will let you monitor RSS feeds for weather, finance, stocks, bookmarks, sports scores, and any other RSS link you'd like to add.

Now here's the bad part: Yahoo Mobile is infinitely customizable, which means that it's infinitely scrollable--the more services you add, the taller the app. While this is less of a problem on the iPhone, whose finger-flicking navigation rapidly scrolls up and down, it will take more time (and patience) on other devices. Although you can easily edit each section, the link to manage accounts from within each silo can easily get lost.

The ability to flip between screens for these various functions makes the iPhone app smoother and less cluttered, though the individual pages can still get long if you add numerous RSS feeds.

Trying to be too many things to too many people has been Yahoo's Achilles' heel for a long time, beginning with the Yahoo Go application that, though excellent and thorough, took too many brain cells for unfettered use.

The theme continued with Yahoo's series of separate apps for different mobile platforms that felt more like experiments than a mobile solution--Yahoo OneSearch with voice, OnePlace, and OneConnect. The retooled Yahoo Mobile unifies them all in a good-looking, intuitive structure whose whole is worth far more than the sum of its parts, even if it has the potential for creating a foot-long application.

Yahoo Mobile for Java phones
Yahoo's new native application for Java phones may be the same genus as the Web portal, but it's a completely different beast. Yahoo Mobile for smartphones has a few more enhancements, including voice search (powered by Vlingo) and an underlying Opera Mini browser. (See an image in our gallery.)

The app will take on a dashboard feel, with the search bar on top and widgets tiled below. The widgets will include services like Facebook and a socially intelligent address book that integrates e-mail history, SMS, IM, and calling.

There will also be a mapping app, and plenty of ways to personalize by adding your own widgets. It certainly looked easy to use when we played with in during our demo, but the one question in our minds is whether people will want a second dashboard on their phones to access their contacts, calendars, social networks, e-mail, and so on.

Answers to these questions will become clearer when Yahoo Mobile for Smartphones becomes available sometime in May.

Yahoo Mobile steps into the light--photos

Sun Microsystems plans to launch JavaFX Mobile on Thursday, the second of a three-stage debut of technology it hopes will ease software design while modernizing its Java technology

JavaFX Mobile is a software layer that handles user interface elements such as graphics and animations on mobile phones. It's closely related to the JavaFX for desktops and laptops introduced in December and the JavaFX version for TVs that's still not released.

Sun's Param Singh discusses JavaFX Mobile.

(Credit: Sun Microsystems)

Sun is also announcing a few partners it's lined up to endorse the technology: mobile phone makers Sony Ericsson and LG Electronics, mobile phone network operators Sprint and Orange, and software providers Cynergy and MobiTV. Param Singh, senior director of Java marketing at Sun, projects that JavaFX could ship in phones in late 2009 but certainly in 2010.

With JavaFX, Sun wants to make it easier to create Java programs with slick user interfaces. When the technology arrives, phone users will "see applications that look great, that are very expressive, but that also are very functional," Singh predicted.

With Java, Sun put Microsoft on the defensive and won over millions of programmers. But the technology now faces innumerable competitors--Microsoft's similar .Net technology among them--and plenty of other high-profiles challenges.

In the mobile area, Apple's iPhone doesn't support Java at all. Adobe is working on a version of Flash 10 for mobile phones. And Google's Android operating system uses a version of Java that strays from the official industry fold, called the Java Community Process. Nokia's got its Symbian operating system, too, and Palm is trying again with its own.

But Sun has more than a foothold. Java has had a decade to get established on mobile phones, and despite problems such as the fragmentation that means a given Java program won't necessarily run on a given Java handset, it's widely available. Sun estimates it's available on 2.6 billion phones.

Sun is aiming JavaFX at a broader market than the smartphone arena where much of the action is happening--basically, the "feature phones" that are a notch above the voice-only models at the bottom of the pecking order.

"We see growth in the feature-phone segment in emerging market. The growth in the U.S. and Silicon Valley is in the high-end smartphones that everyone carries, but that's not the majority of the world," Singh said.

JavaFX handles a number of chores for creating mobile phone applications, but it doesn't do everything. Sun also plans to announce that JavaFX Mobile can work hand-in-hand with its earlier Java Micro Edition technology when it's time to tap directly into mobile phone subsystems such as its Bluetooth communication technology, its camera, or its GPS location system.

Sun also is announcing that the JavaFX software development kit will include an emulator to test JavaFX Mobile software even without a JavaFX Mobile device.

AT&T's Roger Smith implied a limited future for Java-based phones at the largest carrier in the U.S.

(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News)

SAN FRANCISCO--AT&T is planning for a future with just one or two mobile operating systems running on its products, and that may imply a limited future for Java phones at the carrier.

Roger Smith, director of next-generation services at AT&T, implied that Symbian might become the operating system of the future for the phones that AT&T offers subscribers under its own brand. During a talk at the Symbian Partner Event here, Smith promised "dramatic consolidation from AT&T in terms of the mobile platforms and tool chains that we support," and that appears to signal a limited future with AT&T for Java.

"Java has not been a success," Smith said. "It's not because Java is bad, but we didn't manage it effectively." Smith was referring to the much-maligned "fragmentation" problems in the mobile world; in this industry, that word carries the same stench that "proprietary" used to have in enterprise computing.

Solving the fragmentation problem is a key motivation behind the interest in operating systems like Google's Android and the LiMo Foundation's software. Carriers like AT&T want an operating system that they can put their own stamp on, with their own brand, their own applications, and their own unique experience, but they also need support from third-party developers because they simply can't develop everything.

Software platforms like Java and Qualcomm's BREW were supposed to give third-party developers a common platform to write to across different phones and carriers, but in practice, carriers and handset makers essentially "fragmented" those platforms into their own little walled gardens with different user interfaces and requirements. That meant third-party developers had to pick a carrier or phone on which to create their magic and basically start over if they wanted to put that application on another phone; an unattractive proposition.

And as mobile phones have started to become more and more like mobile computers, the software on those phones needs to become more and more sophisticated to run intriguing applications, Smith said. Java doesn't reach down far enough into the lower levels of the phone to exploit hardware in the manner that full-fledged operating systems do, he said.

Enter Symbian. Nokia is attempting to get in on demand for mobile operating systems by acquiring the Symbian operating system and releasing it as a free open-source project managed by an industry consortium called the Symbian Foundation at some point next year. Despite flirting with Android all year, AT&T was a founding member of the Symbian Foundation and is eying that operating system as a candidate for the basic phones that AT&T offers under its own brand.

"We want to standardize our platforms on a platform like Symbian that is mature and effective," Smith said. Obviously, AT&T will continue to offer third-party phones like Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry, but it has lots of customers who aren't looking for the type of high-end experience offered by those products, yet still want a basic Internet-capable phone, he said.

(Credit: Opera Software)

Only yesterday Opera Mini 4.2 beta joined Google's Android Market. On Tuesday, the mini update to Opera's mobile browser for Java phones became the app's new benchmark.

The version 4.2 release appears identical to the beta version (review), made available for download just two weeks before. It boasts speeds up to 30 percent faster, a modified video playback that triggers a media player to stream a video, greater multilingual support, and the reintroduction of skins, a visual extra that had made a short hiatus when Opera upgraded Mini to version 4.0.

In addition, Opera's release of Mini 4.2 coincides with Sprint's upgrade to version MR-4 of its firmware, a bug fixing release that will let Opera users download the mobile browser to Samsung Instinct phones.

Download Opera Mini 4.2 for Java phones.

Skins are reinstated in version 4.2.

(Credit: Opera Software)

With so much energy and progress in the mobile browser space these past two months (see here and here), you would expect the makers of the venerable Opera Mini browser to release an update that makes real progress on its free browser for Java phones.

Instead, on Tuesday, Norway-based Opera Software pushed a mini update (download) that tacks on one syncing function, an assortment of skins worthy of Apple's iPod bonanza, and a wobbly kluge for introducing video playback.

Opera Mini's video playback is the biggest news here. It's in such high demand in the mobile world, it's little wonder why Opera wanted to give users some ability to get to videos using Opera Mini as the conduit. The new system slaps on a patch, but still passes you off to your native browser or media player to play a video when you click the link.

Opera reports that in Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones, for instance, Opera Mini will activate the media player when you click a video like YouTube. It will either close on its own and toss you back to Opera Mini, or you'll shut down and be passed back to the browser.

Competitor Skyfire's in-browser video streaming is far from ideal, but it manages to keep users from taking their eyes off the application. Considering that Skyfire's technology is similar to Opera Mini's and that Skyfire just barely opened its beta, it's a little disappointing that this bridge is all the mighty Opera can muster. Of course, Skyfire has a much smaller operation to maintain in terms of bandwidth costs and it's not certain they can continue to offer video to all interested users. However, Skyfire has gained enough ground to make Opera's added functionality look like a missed mark.

Nothing new here except the color.

(Credit: Opera Software)

Opera Link, rainbow skins

In another tiny tweak, Opera Link gains the ability to sync notes to the Mini browser. The syncing feature shares up-to-date bookmarks and Speed Dial with any other Opera browser when you sign in. The minuscule addition makes you wonder why they didn't go ahead and throw in the ability to sync history, too.

The return of candy-colored skins is Opera's final front-end change. Skinning was slashed after version 3 as Opera's developers rewrote only the most essential code. The six skins--which you switch among by hitting Settings, then Appearance--include green, yellow, pink, silver, black, and a red not dissimilar to Opera Mini's original hue.

The final addition is worth pointing out is wholly back-end. Opera has added a server park in the U.S. that will speed performance for Opera Mini in the U.S. and Asia. The extra servers will disperse the load of users demanding resources; they will also keep those requests more centralized to the source, rather than routing data through Norway and back.

Sun has open-sourced its toolkit for creating Java-based user interfaces for mobile phones.

(Credit: Sun Microsystems)

The source code for the lightweight UI toolkit was released Thursday under the "GPLv2 with Classpath Exception" license. The toolkit includes a full set of "ready-made graphical components," along with support for fonts, themes, animation, and transition effects, Sun said in the accompanying statement.

"By creating LWUIT, Sun is reaffirming its commitment to the mobile development community and by open-sourcing the LWUIT code, we are enabling mobile developers to quickly and easily create rich, portable interfaces for their applications--functionality that they have been requesting for some time," Craig Gering, the company's senior director of embedded Java software, said in the statement.

Gering added that developers would be able to use the toolkit to "create a single interface that will work anywhere Java is found."

Sun's open-sourcing of the toolkit is just the latest development in the fast-moving mobile open-source scene. Earlier in August, Movial joined the LiMo Foundation, bringing with it a toolkit for creating browser-based mobile user interfaces. Meanwhile, Symbian is going open-source, and Google's Android platform--which is effectively Java-based--could still appear as soon as this year.

David Meyer of ZDNet UK reported from London.

If you weren't aware, a war--more like a tug-of-war--is happening in the mobile space. The iPhone is quickly rising as the development platform to beat, despite its paltry share of market versus Nokia (Symbian), Java BREW, Blackberry and Microsoft Mobile. In addition, Google's fledgling open-source Android platform is also a challenger to the incumbents.

At a Mobile Web Wars Roundtable held by TechCrunch more than 20 mobile wonks discussed that state of mobile platforms (see the list of participants below). The purpose of the roundtable was to determine which mobile platform is best for developers. The iPhone has set a new standard for smartphones and most importantly developers are fawning over it, and iPhone users appear to be far more active users than those on other phone platforms. In the first few weeks of iPhone 3G more than 30 million applications have been downloaded.

Another iPhone advantage is that it takes the iterative model of Web development and extends it to the mobile client, said Jed Stremel, director of mobile at Facebook.

But the iPhone is not the universal answer from a business perspective. Loopt CEO Sam Altman said his strategy is choose a single platform (the iPhone) and if a feature becomes popular bring it to other platforms.

David Hornik and Tom Conrad

(Credit: Dan Farber)

David Hornik of August Capital said that he is excited about iPhone because thousands of applications were distributed after it launched--living proof of the viability of the platform. Like Facebook applications, VCs see some potential in funding in iPhone developers. Having the iPhone app store and not having to go through the carriers to access applications is a bonus for distribution. Omar Hamoui, CEO of AdMob, said the value of ads on the iPhone served by his company is three times other platforms.

But the iPhone doesn't have a sizable market yet, compared to Facebook or Windows, Hornik said. "It's not venture scale," he said. Venture capitalist Richard Wong of Accel made the case that there aren't any developers creating applications just for the iPhone today. "It's about finding the largest addressable audience," said Walt Doyle, CEO of uLocate. Yahoo supports everything under the mobile sun and reaches 600 million devices with its mobile services, according to Marc Davis, chief scientist for Yahoo's mobile group.

Mike Arrington, Bart Decrem, Jed Stremel and David Rivas debate iPhone vs. Nokia Symbian and other topics.

(Credit: Dan Farber)

The idea that the iPhone has invented or is reinventing the mobile Web is an overstatement, according to David Rivas, Nokia, vice president of Technology Management for S60 Software, citing Japan and Korea as far ahead of the U.S. in mobile usage. "The idea that there wasn't a mobile before the iPhone is absurd," Rivas said. He also defended Nokia's recently open-sourced S60 platform, saying that it has applications similar to what are available on the iPhone. On the other hand, it doesn't have the buzz or browser of the iPhone, but Nokia produces a phone every 14 seconds, garnering 60 percent of the market. Rivas was asked about a merging of Symbian and Android, and responded that there are no such plans.

Tom Conrad, CTO of music service Pandora, said that the iPhone is fundamentally better for streaming devices and as a multifunction device appeals to consumers in different ways than other phones. Regarding Google's Android platform, Conrad said, "I need Android like I need a hole in the head. The last thing I need from a technology standpoint is a platform that sits on top of buggy firmware, with hundreds of phone manufacturers and different screens."

Loopt's Altman gave Android credit for being more open and capable of running background processes. Jason Devitt of Skydeck gave RIM (Blackberry) props for getting email right and noted that Android has serious challenges ahead. "The biggest challenge for Android is that it is totally dependent on hardware manufacturers and for the carriers to deliver," he said. This is distinct from the iPhone and Blackberry approaches, in which the devices are completely controlled by Apple and RIM, respectively. Developers are taking a wait-and-see approach to Android, which lacks any user base currently.

In summary, developers are enamored of the iPhone and hope that Apple sells hundreds of millions of units, but they will spend their development time and dollars on whatever platforms have volume.

Mobile Platform War participants:

David Rivas, Nokia, Vice President of Technology Management for S60 Software

Walt Doyle, CEO Ulocate

Tom Conrad, CTO Pandora

Greg Yardley, CEO of Pinch Media CEO

Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous

David Hornik, partner, August Capital

Jed Stremel, Director of Mobile at Facebook

Guy Ben-Artzi, Founder of Real Dice and CEO of Mytopia

Jason Devitt, CEO of Skydeck

Gannon Hall, CMO of Kyte

Sam Altman, CEO of Loopt

Marc Davis, chief scientist, Yahoo mobile group

Omar Hamoui, CEO of AdMob

Richard Wong, partner at Accel

Andreas Weigend, former chief scientist, Amazon

Mike Rowehl, chief architect, SkyFire

Mary Ann Cotter, CEO Cooking Capsules

John Faith , GM and VP of Mobile for MySpace